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Serious question: are "aiki" (those skills that Takeda and Ueshiba demonstrated) and what we commonly think of as "aikido" (a curriculum of techniques embodying certain principles) mutually exclusive?

Regards,

-Drew

Hi Drew
What is aiki?
What is Takeda's aiki?
Who has it?
How do you know?
What is Ueshiba's aiki?
Who has it?
How do you know?
Do we follow in the footsteps of others who tell us they have it?
Do we blaze a trail?
I bet neither of them cared what you or I think about aiki.

I don't debate it anymore on the net. You just don't know how qualified peoples opinions are. No, I don't mean rank-I mean skill in aiki. Anyone can say just about anything they want till you touch hands with them. So I touch hands whenever I can with the highest ranked people I can. I haven't felt or seen a body of waza based on principles from anyone in Aikido to be effective at all against aiki.
So there's one opinion that is open to all kinds of intellectual debate and physical challenge. I hope to continue to research and meet the highest ranked Japanese teachers in the world to see if any of them has anything to change my mind. Then I play with MMA types. The results have been pretty interesting from both perspectives.
But that really isn't the topic here.
Cheers
Dan

Hi Dan,
Thanks for the good rebuttal. Just for the record I do think your viewpoint has value and have followed your thinking for many years. The thing is that I don't disagree, but I'm not ready to throw out the curriculum I study either. I'm sure my teacher would say the same thing to you (and probably has).

Wait!
Now I see what you mean. I'm not talking about tossing the syllabus. That is not even close to what I meant.
It is the joining of jujutsu WITH aiki that I am advocating. Not either / or. With real aiki in the body taking the lead. If you consider that viewpoint in light of what I wrote earlier about the creation of the various syllabus from Takeda, it presents a clear and cogent explanation. At least my own perspective. Does that make more sense?
Cheers
Dan

Wait!
Now I see what you mean. I'm not talking about tossing the syllabus. That is not even close to what I meant.
It is the joining of jujutsu WITH aiki that I am advocating. Not either / or. With real aiki in the body taking the lead. If you consider that viewpoint in light of what I wrote earlier about the creation of the various syllabus from Takeda, it presents a clear and cogent explanation. At least my own perspective. Does that make more sense?
Cheers
Dan

Gotcha. One could also add that the more complex the waza (and there are some doozies, aren't there) the more one must have some sort of "aiki" for them to come off even in the dojo. Could that be deliberate?

Wait!
Now I see what you mean. I'm not talking about tossing the syllabus. That is not even close to what I meant.

Dan,

Thanks for the response to my post, but also the one above. I, too, was thinking about the syllabus and wondering if it's an either/or situation.

Thanks for the clarification.

Quote:

Hi Drew
What is aiki?
What is Takeda's aiki?
Who has it?
How do you know?
What is Ueshiba's aiki?
Who has it?
How do you know?
Do we follow in the footsteps of others who tell us they have it?
Do we blaze a trail?
I bet neither of them cared what you or I think about aiki.

I don't know the answers to your questions, but I fully agree with the final statement.

Sigh - What evidence do you base your assertions on Takeda and Ueshiba? What basis is your claim that the"principal of non-resistance" is not part of Daito-ryu? What basis is your claim that Takeda's "high level of martial power" can easily be achieved? On what basis is your claim that Ueshiba went "well beyond the limits of Takeda and DR," except, possibly, in the moral (doctrinal) sense.
And on that last point, not to discomfit your sanctimonious perspective again, but in a PM sometime ago, I wrote to you about a number of Ueshiba's well-known moral failings, as well as another "spiritual" teacher whom you admire, who was an utter lecherous swine, and neither Ueshiba's failings nor the different failings of this other teacher are actions that we have any evidence whatsoever of Takeda doing.

Finally, in regards to your question about what is in my book regarding staffwork, you've got a lot of brass to come onto a thread ABOUT a book, and demand of the author that, because you haven't read it, he should sum it up to you.
Ellis Amdur

True contractive power is made possible only to the degree that one is able to access its corresponding decontracted pole. The greater the reception, decontraction, and compassion, the greater one's power is both manifest and non-manifest. It's described as differential in physics, yang cannot exist unless its yin is equally expressed. On a psychological level if one gets caught up in one's own projected images, the static feedback begins reacting to itself instead of to that which really is thereby shutting off the full dynamic spectrum of perception and action. Resistance of the mind and body are inversely related to one's power and freedom.

True contractive power is made possible only to the degree that one is able to access its corresponding decontracted pole. The greater the reception, decontraction, and compassion, the greater one's power is both manifest and non-manifest. It's described as differential in physics, yang cannot exist unless its yin is equally expressed. On a psychological level if one gets caught up in one's own projected images, the static feedback begins reacting to itself instead of to that which really is thereby shutting off the full dynamic spectrum of perception and action. Resistance of the mind and body are inversely related to one's power and freedom.

"We see others not as they are but as we are"

One hardly knows where to begin, but I suppose that one must give somewhere. I'll limit myself to four questions:

1. Why use nonsensical neologisms such as "decontracted," and "decontraction," when perfectly good words of longstanding usage such as "expanded," "expansion" are at hand?

2. Why implicitly posit a connection between mechanical qualities such as contraction and psychological orientations such as compassion?

3. On what basis can one assert a transparent one-to-one relationship between physics, taoist theory, psychological theory, and physiological reality?

4. Can we presume that your understanding of physics, psychology, physiology, and aikido is as impoverished as your badly cribbed abhidharma?

At a minimum, it strikes me as very odd to answer a specific question with a new line of ungrounded assertions.

At a maximum....no, I dare not go even halfway there, for there are certain standards of decorum that need to be reinforced, so I will stop here for now, and just ask a fifth question:

5. Why is it that so many posters with fixations feel obliged to answer questions about their gibberish with yet more gibberish, never pausing for a moment to reflect that neither the ideas they have expressed, nor the manner in which they have expressed them warrant the high regard in which the poster seems to hold both?

Offered, with my apologies to Ellis, as a metacognitive interlude which owes a debt to Gresham.

5. Why is it that so many posters with fixations feel obliged to answer questions about their gibberish with yet more gibberish, never pausing for a moment to reflect that neither the ideas they have expressed, nor the manner in which they have expressed them warrant the high regard in which the poster seems to hold both?

The idea of "no resistance" that is used in Aikido is actually an extremely old tenet (back to the supposed "Lao Tsu" writings). In other words, Ueshiba was typically following old Chinese classics in regard to how someone in Aikido an D.R. and many other "high-level" arts is supposed to be. "No resistance, no letting go" is the general idea. "Ju" as in "Judo" follows the same very old classical tenet, as do all the "ju" as in "jujutsu".

It's possible that Ueshiba first heard that idea from Takeda, but I'd doubt it. Being shown how is another question. Being shown as fully how as Ueshiba wound up with is yet another question. But then again... where did Takeda get his ideas and how complete were they? Were they purely offshoots of Takeda's own training and ideas? That's improbable, considering the power if the old Chinese ideas that was floating around in all the martial arts.

Mike - thanks for bringing it back on track. Actually, it seems likely that Takeda was "softer" than Ueshiba. Sagawa's descriptions of Takeda sound remarkably like huajin. If Ueshiba got that soft - it was only as an old guy - and it was then combined with his expansive way of doing technique. As I wrote elsewhere, I think Ueshiba was "power proud," - it was hard to let go of his rather massive muscular power - we see him posing for photos in the mid-fifties, in full flex, as cut as a body builder - obviously proud of the red meat he had under the skin. I wouldn't be at all surprised that some of his post-war technical development was when he finally "got" what Takeda had been doing all along.
es, Takeda did some twisty nasty jujutsu, but if I'm reading the accounts correctly (and this includes those of some of Ueshiba's students), what enabled him to twist people up was his total domination - by "getting inside" the opponent, their force reflected back within them + his own additive. It's very difficult, however, to be able to tell what Takeda did - as each line seems to have a different interpretation based on what they were taught and what they figured out.
Best
Ellis Amdur

I am not so sure we can glibly say that something like the Hiden Mokuroku was arbitrary and fluid. From what little I know of various branches including "aiki budo" era aikido I see a remarkable consistency of technical content.

Maybe not arbitrary in content, but Sokaku's art definitely seemed to be something of a "work in progress" and regularly changed and developed over the years.

While possibly unrelated, but I had completely forgotten about this conversation, but 9 or 10 years ago I was having a discussion with my iai sensei about his childhood and what not and asking about his father who ran a small jujutsu dojo out in the sticks up here in Akita as well as being very active in sumo as well. At one point I asked what his father had studied and he said "Takeda-ryu". I asked if this was connected to Takeda Sokaku and he basically said that it was what everyone today calls Daito-ryu, and commented that even the name "Daito-ryu" wasn't really used in that area of Tohoku and no one called it that and only started coming up later. Unfortunately my sensei's father died young and my sensei himself had moved to Tokyo in his later teens to study karate and didn't return until he was in his 30's so I'm not sure he even knows all that much about details of his father's training, although a couple of years ago he did show me an exercise his father had them do as a kid instead of shiko (for those curious, basically the exercise is you drop into a very low horse stance and then bounce yourself, while staying "in stance", forward, then back to center, backward, back to center, right, back to center, left, back to center, repeat. At first it just looks like you are jumping, but now I suspect there was more intended than meets the eye).

Many years ago in a Philosophy of Religion class I watched a fella melt down completely. He was quite, um, adamant in his beliefs and it seemed he took the class thinking that given he had been raised in a so thoroughly devoutly religious family that a philosophy of religion class would be an easy class to sail through. Unfortunately his pleasant little sailing boat of constant affirmation of beliefs ran ashore in the class during a discussion of the formal logic underlying some arguments against the existence of God. It was a very good discussion (albeit the normal dry evaluation of logic) right up until he suddenly stood up, start saying things like "Jesus equals love and since love is good then Jesus must be good therefore..." He went on a sort of free-form mental dumping of incoherent blather for a few moments, looked around the class with those wide, crazy eyes of a person whose entire web of belief appeared to be about to collapse, then ran out of the room never to return.

Gotcha. One could also add that the more complex the waza (and there are some doozies, aren't there) the more one must have some sort of "aiki" for them to come off even in the dojo. Could that be deliberate?

I've often wondered if most techniques are really more or less puzzles intended to stress the students ability to do them with aiki more than anything else. "Ha, try it this way!"

I've often wondered if most techniques are really more or less puzzles intended to stress the students ability to do them with aiki more than anything else. "Ha, try it this way!"

Now that's an interesting idea!

Are these mokuroku confirming the teachers ability to consistently perform those techniques with aiki? Could that be why they are all different? Different students/teachers taught different things that result in different expressions/waza?

The only real problem-if we are discussing DR- is that the stickiness or ability to draw someones power in is a skill that is essential for the connectedness in the waza-particularly the more complex ones. And it is almost never going to be developed by doing the waza. The percentage of people who "get it" (DR suffers the same issues as Aikido-a lot of people...smelling up the place) is low, for the simple reason that kata is simply the dumb ass way -to- try and get it. When you work on the body; all the aiki effects follow as your body changes. Gradually all of these "things" start to happen.
The power side is the other side of the same coin. Where it starts to get complex is that there are things you can do to make the body absorb and issue power at the same time and THIS is fully displayed in various techniques as well

The idea of having to focus on Waza or Aiki from the beginning is simply nonsense. The fact that Takeda said it to people, doesn't make it true. There are any number of reasons for him stating a lie as fact. Chief among them is him being "Japanese." The truth of it is rather obvious; that he could have-by choice- taught anyone aiki. I hate to think of the reasons for the ones he chose to raise up as being as base as they first appear-Money and prestige. But the fact remains that those who became the "stars" Sagawa, Ueshiba, Kodo, all came from money.
Hisa, I suspect, was a revenge, a slap in the face to the defecting Ueshiba. Not withstanding the prestige of teaching at the Asahi Newspaper dojo. Not surprisingly it was beautifully capped off with the appropriate finishing touch of the appearance of the first Menkyo Kaiden. Large size in a full formal portrait. "Hey Ueshiba!! Look what you still don't know." It was all show of course. But since he was "the man" it sent others scrambling to get there's as well. The more recent of which I sited in an earlier post where Tokimune himself had to "borrow one" to copy it for Kondo. Budo...

I knew full well that my ideas of Takeda making it up as he went along was not going to be received well in any venue. But the evidence is obvious and pervasive. The diversity of the syllabus is the most obvious, the ever growing number of scrolls, the creation of the Menkyo-all while Takeda was alive. No traceable lineage line, no extent scrolls predating Takeda. There are other anecdotal stories-like Rennis being told Takeda ryu morphed into Daito ryu-kicking around in the weeds as well; there is an early interview in AJ with discussions of selecting the name. Other hints where there was a supposed discussion between Kotaro and Kodo about the early scrolls. The obvious and weird stories of never repeating a technique! You can almost take the entirety of the Daito ryu story and put up against more common norms in Koryu and it's all damn strange. The single validation is the immense and undeniable presence of Takeda. Both his family and clan history and his phenomenal skill. Then you had his ability to teach; Sagawa, Kodo and Ueshiba further proved its worth. The method-from way back in the day-was so kick ass, that no one questioned whatever Takeda chose to say about. I would guess were he to have said he was a ninja, we would all be talking about the ninja art of Takeda.

Jujutsu V aiki
The single greatest attribute of Daito ryu is NOT its jujutsu. I don't argue with those in DR who bandy about the "brilliance" of its jujutsu. Every Koryu menkyo I know, looks at DR jujutsu and it "supposed" Koryu usage and sort of smiles. Most will not say anything publicly but they state flatly that "that stuff is weird" Or "that ain't koryu jujutsu." It is a testiment to Tatemae / Honne just to see how certain well known DR teachers are "received" and then what is actually said about them in Koryu circles. As far as the overal opinion of DR. I will be so bold as to say that I am making headway. None of the Koryu people I know gave it much respect at all, and no one in grappling or MMA venues would do anything but laugh till they felt what I could do with it's aiki. And they STILL don't think much of its jujutsu. I said to a former teacher of mine "Stop resenting it, I go places you can't, and fight with it without loss of reputation and do things FOR the art that you could never accomplish."

DR isn't koryu. But it has something at its core that is brilliant and stands head and shoulders above koryu. It's all about the aiki. And the aiki is all about the body. Only then does "your juts" have the real juice. Personally even then I wouldn't give you a nickle for most of their jujutsu. If you take the same body attributes and the same principles; they seamlessly apply to more rational movement in modern combatives. Further, you become aiki and anti-aiki to anyone trying to do aiki to you. No Aiki from Aikido or Daito ryu will work on me. I'll just stand there looking at you. In summation I still look at most of the practice shown in the aiki arts and see it all as missing the forest for the trees.
The real power- isn't in the juts.
Dan

Are these mokuroku confirming the teachers ability to consistently perform those techniques with aiki? Could that be why they are all different? Different students/teachers taught different things that result in different expressions/waza?

Are you discussing the Mokuroku they were given by Takeda or the syllabus they taught?
Where does the ten Gen of Sagawa and Sagawa's method of imparting Aiki, match up with the hidden mokuroku, goshin yo-no-te etc. that he was given? And how does that compare with the Hidden Mokuroku of Tokimune (which he states he re-organized) and their public and private opinion of the aiki of the Kodokai and Roppokai, and all of that compared to the syllabus of the Kodokai and then compared to the Soden of the Takumakai? Now add in Ueshiba!!
And where do they all teach in a consistent, organized, step-by-step process that matches the scrolls, school to school, as in the koryu that follow their menjo?
Now there's an interesting discussion. Where did Takeda make it up as he went along -and his students (who got it) simply followed their teacher's example?

I suspect that the ones who were bright enough to pursue it (after Takeda gave them the methods for internal power/ aiki) and develop it- walked into another of the shining attributes of this work. Awareness, inventiveness, a universal potential in all things, and continued growth. Internal power / aiki is formless and it continues to both create and reveal. The same talent and ability that first imparted it to you doesn't simply go away...it grows.
You simply keep changing.

I remember reading in "Conversations With Daito Ryu Masters" that Takeda used to lay down at night and stretch out his arms and make strange movements with his fingers. I wonder what he was doing? Tracing patterns in the air maybe? Any ideas?

I knew full well that my ideas of Takeda making it up as he went along was not going to be received well in any venue. But the evidence is obvious and pervasive. The diversity of the syllabus is the most obvious, the ever growing number of scrolls, the creation of the Menkyo-all while Takeda was alive. No traceable lineage line, no extent scrolls predating Takeda. There are other anecdotal stories-like Rennis being told Takeda ryu morphed into Daito ryu-kicking around in the weeds as well; there is an early interview in AJ with discussions of selecting the name. Other hints where there was a supposed discussion between Kotaro and Kodo about the early scrolls. The obvious and weird stories of never repeating a technique! You can almost take the entirety of the Daito ryu story and put up against more common norms in Koryu and it's all damn strange. The single validation is the immense and undeniable presence of Takeda. Both his family and clan history and his phenomenal skill.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Are you discussing the Mokuroku they were given by Takeda or the syllabus they taught?
Where does the ten Gen of Sagawa and Sagawa's method of imparting Aiki, match up with the hidden mokuroku, goshin yo-no-te etc. that he was given? And how does that compare with the Hidden Mokuroku of Tokimune (which he states he re-organized) and their public and private opinion of the aiki of the Kodokai and Roppokai, and all of that compared to the syllabus of the Kodokai and then compared to the Soden of the Takumakai? Now add in Ueshiba!!
And where do they all teach in a consistent, organized, step-by-step process that matches the scrolls, school to school, as in the koryu that follow their menjo?
Now there's an interesting discussion. Where did Takeda make it up as he went along -and his students (who got it) simply followed their teacher's example?

I suspect that the ones who were bright enough to pursue it (after Takeda gave them the methods for internal power/ aiki) and develop it- walked into another of the shining attributes of this work. Awareness, inventiveness, a universal potential in all things, and continued growth. Internal power / aiki is formless and it continues to both create and reveal. The same talent and ability that first imparted it to you doesn't simply go away...it grows.
You simply keep changing.

Dan

If I understand correctly, the sword was also "on its way out", so to speak. The incident with Takeda and the workers highlights this. Without the sword, perhaps Takeda took to unarmed to further his skill? To do that, you have to work with something, some sort of unarmed techniques.

Maybe those with a better understanding of koryu can correct me here, but wouldn't koryu be more strict in how it was taught? If Takeda wanted some free reign to "play" and keep learning, it would have been a rather weird choice for him to do so through a koryu.

So, maybe Takeda took the option that gave him the most room to do what he wanted -- create his own way using the aiki body skills. And maybe that "complex" waza was just Takeda seeing what he could do with his aiki? I'm sure even Takeda kept learning and growing in his abilities and skills.

The only real problem-if we are discussing DR- is that the stickiness or ability to draw someones power in is a skill that is essential for the connectedness in the waza-particularly the more complex ones. And it is almost never going to be developed by doing the waza.

Hey, Dan, just riffing on this part of your post... Not DR as it ain't my area at all.

The late R. Kobayashi-sensei used to tell our group that advanced techniques were nothing more than simplified basics. That expression used to have me scratching my head, but over the years I began to realize the meaning of it. We build up the more complicated waza but as they start to fall apart we have to go back to very basic things. Testing balance, structure, movement, power, intent. And usually the problem with executing the more advanced waza could be traced back into simply not doing some basic thing well. Poor posture, no support, no grounding, trying to muscle instead of using that "something else", etc. So we'd end up back at things like tests, the aiki taiso, etc. looking at what needed to be fixed. Then build back up.

So no argument with me about the necessity of developing the body/skills/feel. But the larger picture is still that eventually you want to utilize those skills under increasingly difficult scenarios. Which I think was the point I was trying to make. Kinda like "Okay, you can do a basic ikkyo. Now try doing it this way..." as a means of increasing the student's ability to instantiate those skills in increasingly challenging situations.

Maybe those with a better understanding of koryu can correct me here, but wouldn't koryu be more strict in how it was taught? If Takeda wanted some free reign to "play" and keep learning, it would have been a rather weird choice for him to do so through a koryu.

So, maybe Takeda took the option that gave him the most room to do what he wanted -- create his own way using the aiki body skills. And maybe that "complex" waza was just Takeda seeing what he could do with his aiki? I'm sure even Takeda kept learning and growing in his abilities and skills.

Mark - let me answer part of your question. Depends on the koryu. For example, Kashima Shin-ryu is both strict in it's teachings, but gave someone like Kunii Zen'ya all the room he needed for free-style testing of his waza and continued research. Other koryu were really "ko" - Old - and rigidly went through the motions.
But I think Takeda was a creative, revolutionary figure - why bind oneself up in someone else's ryu when he WAS his own ryu. He had something absolutely his own. Imagine being handed a piano with only white keys and somehow you discover the black keys. Why confine yourself to the old instrument? Which leads to the speculation that many of his successors, re-confined themselves in a Japanese cultural zone - all or mostly white keys, with maybe one or two black keys thrown in. (Strained metaphor, to be sure).
BTW - I just got it on very good authority - a headmaster of one of the extant koryu that up through Taisho period - 1925 ending - a substantial number, maybe most koryu had solo breathing and other practices - but that a) a lot of these people died in WWII, and b) most ryu no longer practice c) to his frustration, even with HIM demonstrating the value of this type of tanren training, most of his students do not do it. "They don't't have time" or "I can't do that around other people. They will think I'm crazy."

As for the complex body skills, the way I've seen it - as described in HIPS - is a combination of waza giving him a means of transacting his way though society, not so simple as mere monetary gain, but the very complexity gave him the ability to teach in a sustain way for 5 - 10 days, keep everyone occupied, happy AND actually learning something - but he'd be on his way without giving away the real source of his power. AND - it think it was human origami. There must have been times that he was saying, inside, "I can do anything I want to these people. I wonder if I can stack four of them up with their feet twisted in each other's ears. Let's see!"

So, although I really appreciate all the in-depth information provided in this thread, as one who currently trains in Aikido, it leaves me with some curious conclusions:

1. Daito Ryu, and Aikido to an even greater extent, are strange and weird systems of jujutsu that have no combative or self-defense value, and, in addition, have huge technical holes in them.

2. Aiki is basically extinct from modern Aikido and only a few individuals possess any accurate knowledge on how to foment such ability within the practitioner. This is akin to being able to actually find an authentic Koryu teacher or ryu-ha in the U.S. (few and far between).

3. The development of Aiki, or "Inner Strength" is better achieved through Chinese systems of practice.

4. That DR or Aikido are not even very effective ways to deliver this Aiki or "Inner Strength." One would be much better served with a more direct "fighting system."

This is not meant in a mean-spirited way at all, but, is this what we are getting at here?